Dry hop process

[redrocker652002]

OK, so today is the day for my dry hopping. This particular beer has been in the fermenter for about 2 weeks at about 70 to 71 degrees. It appears done so my thought is dry hop today and bottle Friday. My question is, after reading some posts about a "soft crash" during dry hop, would it be advisable to maybe drop the temp to about 65 or so for the next few days and dry hop at that temp? There is quite a bit of dry hops this time, about 5 ounces, so my thought of maybe dropping the temp to get more of the flavor out of them seems like it could be a good idea. Thoughts?

 

[bailey mountain brewer]

The idea of dry hopping at lower temps is to avoid hop creep and lower hop burn on heavily hopped beers. I dry hop at 55f when my dry hop load is 1.5oz per gallon or more. Assuming you are referring to a 5 gallon batch then you would be at 1 oz per gallon which is still a decent amount of dry hops. If you can I would drop to 60f then add hops, this is also dependent on your process and equipment, some guys are doing closed transfers to a "dry hop keg" the goal for all this is to avoid the hops contacting to much of the yeast and restarting fermentation.

 

[wepeeler]

Soft crashing is to get the yeast out of suspension so you don't get hop burn from the yeast/hop interaction. Just be aware when you soft crash, you're going to create a vacuum and suck in either Star San solution from your airlock or blow off tube, as well as oxygen. I used to use THIS before I got my unitank. Now I just push some CO2 into the Uni before soft crashing to 50F so I don't implode my fermenter.

 

[redrocker652002]

Thanks for the replies. I dropped it down to 60, there was still liquid in the airlock, so I might have avoided the O2 problem, but I did open the lid for a minute or two to drop the hops in. I have done this for all my dry hop beers, so it is what it is. Gonna let it ride until either friday afternoon or saturday morning and bottle.

 

[wepeeler]

You should be fine. I did this for all my dry hopping before I got my unitanks. Never had an oxidized beer.